Travis and I are in a mixed marriage. I am catholic; he is protestant. I am half Italian; he is half Norwegian. I believe Christmas starts at midnight on December 25th and ends at nightfall on January 6th; he believes Christmas ends sometime after dinner on December 25th and then its on to New Year's.
Needless to say we were raised differently. My mother began decorating the house promptly on the Sunday after Thanksgiving. No sooner were my godparents out of the driveway and on their way back to New York, when my father and I were up the ladder and into the attic hauling down box after box. Window by window my mother's trademark two candles (white bulbs-- always) and two wreathes (hung by red velvet ribbon carefully folded over a thumbtack to hide how they were hung) went up first. My mother had a system I copy to this day. One never had to crawl to light a Christmas light at our house; they were either on a wall switch or a timer (preferably a timer). With each new house over the course of three decades of keeping my own home, I still look at every potential house via the lens of where the tree can go and how I can wire the Christmas lights to work with the minimum number of timers.
The tree went up the second week in December. Since my mother's father was a pioneer in the manufacturing of artificial Christmas trees (and every year I watch "A Christmas Story" and hear the father describe an early artificial tree as a series of "green pipe cleaners" I have to chuckle-- because grandpa's trees did resemble silk wound green pipe cleaners), our trees were always artificial. I was 30 before I had my one and only live tree, and it lasted less than 36 hours when Alex (our puppy) took it down and proceeded to eat 23 of the 24 candy canes. My mother's rejoinder was typical.
"What did you expect? Your grandfather probably knocked it down out of principle."
The tree may have gone up the second week in December, but that was planned, because it was going to be up until the second week in January. My mother never took down the tree until the weekend after epiphany. She would, after the evening of January 6th, no longer light the Christmas lights, but up until epiphany everything stayed up.
The point of all this is that we always celebrated all of Christmastide. Advent was not Christmas, it was preparation for Christmas carefully scheduled to build momentum. Every evening before dinner I would open that day's door of the advent calendar, read the message behind the door, and move Jesus a little closer to the creche. Once we got back from New York where we spent the first few days of Christmas, I would get to do the same thing with the wise men; moving them ever closer to the manger so they would arrive on "little Christmas" as we called it.
Here in Puerto Rico epiphany (or "Three Kings Day") is the big holiday. Christmas Eve is festive, Christmas day relaxed, New Year's Eve a vibrant (and LOUD) intermission, New Year's Day a recovery day. But on the evening of January 5th, children go to bed leaving out straw for the wise men's camels (or horses) and awaken the next morning to find their gifts waiting for them in the living room. Later in the day when the kings parade through their town, they squeal with joy and jostle to thank the kings in person for their favorite gift before going off to enjoy a roast pig (a WHOLE roast pig) with their extended families. How different this is from the concept of bribery, intrigue and threat incumbent in the modern day version of Santa Claus.
I never really liked Santa Claus as a child. When I was four my Uncle Fred played the role, but I didn't buy it. First I wanted to know why my Aunt Liz was at the house on Christmas Eve without Uncle Fred. Then when Santa arrived I quite miserably pointed out that it wasn't Santa Claus but rather-- Uncle Fred ("I can tell by his eyes." I reportedly said). I do however remember getting a Popeye puppet that year which I really enjoyed. And a sled. So that much was a success.
In later years, since hauling "presents from Santa" to New York and a packed five room apartment was impractical to the extreme, my father (ever the wheeler dealer) made a special arrangement with Santa whereby my gifts were deposited special delivery on the 23rd of December, and I could take one gift with me to New York. I have no doubt my parents were counting the seconds until I finally gave up on the inconvenient belief of Santa as an article of faith.
To this day I still prefer the concept of the wise men and children's gifts. The wise men are just doing for the kids what they did for Jesus-- celebrating their purity, hope and divinity. No bargaining. No bribery. Just unconditional love. And from the kids-- sincere gratitude. Not to a tyrannical elf in Canada (or Russia, or Alaska or Sweden or wherever the North pole happens to be this year) and his snoopy little informers, but to three honest to goodness mortal human beings who set out on an arduous quest to find a child born to bring faith, hope, love and charity into the world. I don't know about you, but I think we could use a lot more wise men and a lot less Santa during the holiday season.
A safe and happy holiday season to one and all.
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